Interview with Tagüide Picanerai, a member of OPIT - GTI PIACI
“Preventing deforestation in this territory always ensures the well-being of all parties involved.”
Tagüide Picanerai is a member of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people of the Paraguayan Chaco and a representative of OPIT (Organización Payipie Ichadie Totobiegosode). He has over 20 years of direct experience working with his people, including those who came out of the forest in 2004, and on the protection of Ayoreo-Totobiegosode who remain in voluntary isolation. He recently completed a law degree, adding a legal dimension to his long-standing advocacy work. He spoke with Carolina Gil Posse about territorial protection as the foundation of his people's rights, the importance of free prior and informed consent, and what outside organizations often get wrong when they engage with Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI).
Name:
Tagüide Picanerai
Organization:
OPIT / GTI PIACI
Country:
Paraguay
Interviewer:
Carolina Gil Posse
Impact areas:
Autonomous and Sustainable Territorial Protection, Legal Certainty and Title Gaps, Self-Determination and Consent in Climate Initiatives, Information Extraction by External Actors.
Download the full PDF interview.
On what's working
Protecting territory from within is the most sustainable form of protection.
For Tagüide, the most significant achievement of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode has been accomplished largely without external help: the protection and care of their ancestral territory. The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Natural and Cultural Heritage Zone, recognized by the Paraguayan state through a ministerial resolution, is, in Tagüide's account, the result of the community’s own commitment. He describes a vision of the future that does not depend on the presence or absence of external organizations. "Those who belong to the communities, no matter how often they leave and return, never abandon those visions of a future," he says.
On barriers
State recognition on paper is not the same as legal security.
The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Natural and Cultural Heritage Zone has been recognized by name through a ministerial resolution, but part of their territory remains untitled. Until the Paraguayan state formally hands over title to the full territory, Tagüide says, the work is not done. Broader protection also requires collective effort at the national level. Without wider Paraguayan society understanding and supporting territorial protection, exploitation of resources will continue.
On the intersection of climate and PIACI rights
Self-determination cannot be an afterthought in climate and conservation initiatives.
Tensions arise when climate or conservation policies are imposed without respecting Indigenous self-determination. The state and outside actors, Tagüide says, keep trying to implement environmental protection policies without consulting or genuinely involving Indigenous communities from the start. For Tagüide, free, prior, and informed consent is the starting point for any legitimate engagement with Indigenous communities, whether by public institutions or private actors.
On building effective alliances
When outside organizations treat Indigenous communities as sources of information or funding opportunities, they replicate the extractivism they claim to oppose.
The sudden proliferation of external attention on PIACI issues has broader implications, Tagüide notes. Previously, the issue of isolated and recently contacted peoples was not extensively addressed outside the communities themselves. Now that it has gained international visibility, many outside actors want to be involved.
"When everyone gets involved in a topic like this, it often ends up being about extracting resources,” he says, “without much being achieved in terms of rights in general, and the issue of territory in particular." His response has been to work more autonomously, and he sees that as one of the reasons the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode have made more progress than many comparable communities.
